


Take Me One More Round

by Altenprano



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Beauyasha throughout but more towards the end, F/F, Gen, TW for mentions of abuse, because beau's coping mechanisms are questionable, there is some fighting, tw abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 17:27:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14898872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Altenprano/pseuds/Altenprano
Summary: She waits until the time is right, until he’s standing at an angle where he looks like her father that smug son of a bitch who thought he could hire the Mighty fucking Nein to do his dirty work, and then she strikes.-Beau deals with frustrating things in one of two ways, either shouting at it, or going to punch something, and sometimes both.





	Take Me One More Round

**Author's Note:**

> Tw for violence, as well as mentions of abuse.

Blood roars in her ears as Beau squares up, ready to deliver the next blow. Her heart races in her chest—from fear, anger, excitement, she doesn’t know which one it is, only that it’s got to be one of those—and beneath the burn of adrenaline, she can feel her muscles begin to protest.

Her opponent is a man a few years older than her, a half elf, with dark hair and a bloody nose. His eyes are blue, at least that’s what she thinks. They’re both beginning to swell from where she hit him earlier in the fight.

He jeers at her while she circles, catching her breath and calculating her next move.

Part of her wants to move with reckless abandon, casting aside all semblance of her training, while the other wants to attack with the deadly precision of the Cobalt Reserve. She isn’t sure which part is louder; she can barely hear them over the cheering crowd.

Ah yes, the crowd.

They exist in her periphery, a mass of cheering and booing that she doesn’t care for. Perhaps in another life, she could have been a prizefighter, dedicating her life to winning glory in the fighting pits of the Empire, and then she would have felt at home here.

She isn’t sure who the crowd wants to win. Her mind is so dazed, so clouded over by the need to fight, to fight and to prove (to prove what, she isn’t quite sure, but she is here to prove something), that she does not remember why she came here. She thinks the half-elf is the favorite (well fuck him), because of the way he carries himself, like some arrogant golden boy or something like that, even after she broke his nose.

She’s in no better shape, she’s sure, but she’s fighting nonetheless. She isn’t weak, and even if she is, the fury in her blood pushes her forward, so that she runs at the half-elf, throwing all her weight at him so that she drives him against the front of a makeshift stall. She hears the wood creak, and a glimpse of purple catches her eye, someone calling her name. She shakes her head, ridding herself of the distraction, but it’s too late, and the half-elf has regained his bearings and shoves her backwards, onto her back.

Her lungs burn, but she doesn’t think anything’s broken. No, she knows what a broken rib feels like, and this isn’t it.

The half-elf spits on her, and taunts her, tells her to run home to her daddy or some shit like that. He’s walking dangerously close, and she waits. She waits until the time is right, until he’s standing at an angle where he looks like her father _that smug son of a bitch who thought he could hire the Mighty fucking Nein to do his dirty work_ , and then she strikes.

She sweeps her foot under him, a motion that catches him off guard, and then she grits her teeth and uses the motion to get to her feet and rain hell upon him. She strikes blindly—his chin, rib, shoulder, cheek, she doesn’t care, she just hits and hits, again and again. He grabs her by the wrist, his grip like a vice, like her father’s vise-like grip when he caught her slouching or speaking out of turn, and she slips out of it. She’s learned, oh how she’s learned, since those early years. He thought sending her off to the Cobalt Reserve to get her out of his hair would teach her to behave, teach her the discipline of monks, and it did teach her that, but it also taught her how to fight back.

The half-elf goes for her wrist again; he looks for purchase amongst the wrappings that are rapidly coming undone, and Beau flings her fist into his face. She’s abandoned all illusion of form now. Now it is just wild, unbridled rage that courses through her as she and the half-elf trade blow after blow, striking anywhere they can find purchase. She sees him begin to stagger and knocks him across the face, striking as close to his crown as she dares. He steps out of the way and she falls forward, only to be caught by the collar of her top and yanked back. He underestimates her ability to keep her balance this time, though, and she rocks forward, lunging for him. He strikes her across the cheek, like her father did when she back-talked him or a tutor, or spoke out of turn (which was always) at the dinner table. It’s her turn to spit this time, and she thinks she tastes blood, though a quick search assures her that all her teeth are in place. She bares her teeth and lunges for him again, throwing all her weight into the blow so that he topples over, and she can pin him to the ground.

The crowd cheers. Of course they do. This means nothing to them. They just like to see people beat the shit out of other people. They don’t care why; they just make their wagers and hope their favorite comes through. There’s the manager, sure, but he is only there to run his show and make easy money. All the people here want are money.

The crowd cheers, and Beau thinks she hears someone calling her name, but she doesn’t care. All she is concerned with is hitting something, and that something happens to be the half-elf she’s managed to pin to the floor.

She’s not even thinking as she does it, just cursing her father and cursing her mother too, for dying and leaving her with that man. She wonders for a moment if things would have been different, had her mother not died, but then goes back to striking at the half-elf beneath her.

She goes to deal another blow—a final blow, she thinks darkly—and finds she can’t. Someone is holding her back with strength greater than her own (okay, she’s not that strong, but she is on a fucking roll right now), but she doesn’t look to see who. She fights the hold, trying to get at the half-elf, she needs to wipe that fucking smug grin off his fucking face, but the hold remains firm.

Without any fight left, she can feel the adrenaline in her blood dissipating, and her vision swings out of focus for a moment as she’s lifted to her feet. She feels herself waver, and someone catches her on the side, and she can feel her muscles screaming and her hands pulsing as she’s led from the ring.

The crowd has fallen still, a murmur of concern rippling through the stands as Beau is escorted out, leaving the half-elf on his back in the sand.

“Let’s get you home,” a familiar voice says as she’s stood straight and led from the ring.

She tries to force her way back. She isn’t finished with that smug son of a bitch. She can feel him grinning at her (no doubt missing a few teeth), and he hears him call out a taunt. She needs to finish what she started.

“I can fight my own fucking battles,” she protests, lashing out with a fist, only to have it caught before she can land the blow. The grip isn’t tight, but there is firmness to it, and Beau feels herself quiet a little as Yasha lowers it back to her side. Even with the taller woman’s support, she feels herself wobble. “Let me go.”

“While I don’t doubt you can, you’re in no state to do so right now.” The voice, she realizes, is Mollymauk, and her vision clears enough for her to see him standing before her, wearing that ridiculous coat of his. He has something slung over his arm, her cloak, Beau realizes. She also realizes he isn’t smiling, like he usually does, but his lips are set in a stern line, reminding her a little of her father.

“Fuck you.” And she spits at Molly’s feet. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

There is a laugh, slightly sardonic, perhaps, though Beau can’t tell, not with her ears beginning to ring, now that the roar of blood has left them.

“I love you too Beauregard,” Molly says, the stupid, taunting grin still there, and he claps her on the shoulder—gently, _but it still fucking hurts_. He’s taunting her. He’s always fucking taunting her.

“Fuck you,” she says, louder this time, trying to get a swing at him, but Yasha holds her in place, as calm and silent as a stone. “I was fucking winning. I was fucking winning and you came and ruined it!”

“You were getting beat to shit and I’m pretty sure you were dead set on beating that kid to death there.” Molly shakes his head. “You’re coming back to the inn, and we’ll get you cleaned up, and then, if you want to, we can talk.”

Beau glances over her shoulder at the ring, but she can’t see far enough to see if the half-elf is stirring, and, frankly, she doesn’t care. “Whatever,” she says, hanging her head. “I need a drink.”

Molly clucks his tongue. “We’ll see about a drink,” he says, leading the way out of the back alley pit. He stops to collect a loud pouch of coin from the bookie at the front podium before proceeding onward.

Beau makes it at least ten feet before she feels like her legs can’t carry her anymore. The world is spinning, the adrenaline rush leaving her weak from exertion, and she wants to cry, but she refuses to. She can cry once everyone has gone to bed, so no one has to see what her father’s done to her.

As if she senses it, Yasha scoops Beau up, holding her as if she weighs next to nothing. Molly chatters on about all the shenanigans the rest of the Nein got up to while Beau was off fighting (he does not mention this though, and Beau wonders if the rest of the Nein will ask her in the morning, where she went). He stops glance up at the moon, which is wide and full, the second moon glowing dimly beside it, and then they continue on.

The walk to the inn is not long, but it feels long, because everything is on fire or throbbing for Beau. She knows her wrappings on her hand have come undone, and she feels her knuckles throb, as if they’ve been split. She knows one eye is swelling over and her lip is split, and her nose stopped bleeding long ago and she hopes she didn’t get any blood on Yasha. Her head pounds as well, with leftover rage and from being slammed into the ground early on in the fight, and she can still feel some of that rage coiled in her stomach,

Yasha sets Beau down on the bed, while Mollymauk goes to find a basin of water, he says, and some cloth bandages. Beau sits in silence, her body trembling with fear, with rage—again she is not sure, and she forces herself to sit up. Lying down she is vulnerable, and she is not going to be vulnerable.

She has to be strong, has to keep others at a distance. They can admire her strength—in fact, she wants nothing more—but they cannot get too close. She is afraid they will see what she really is beneath her quips and snarky remarks, afraid if they look to close, they will find the hairline cracks she has worked so hard to fill with someone else’s bravery. She herself is not brave. She is a coward, who shrinks away at the sight of her father, even though she is grown and has no reason to fear him anymore. He cannot hurt here, and yet, when they went to complete their assignment, he did. He lashed at her with barbed words and she fought back, returning the barbs with her own, telling him everything short of “I hate you,” and earning startled glances from all of the Nein.

He said they were similar, that she is just as crafty and power-hungry as he, and if she wanted, she could achieve the same ends he has found. She does not want to be like him. She is someone else, something else. She is not the cruel, power-hungry man she remembers from her childhood, the man who wanted a son and got a daughter, who raised his daughter with such reluctance, Beau wonders why the gods even let her be born to this man. She’s no bully, the way he was to her, and she hasn’t got a stick up her as the way he has, the way he wanted her to.

She feels soft lips on her forehead, and gentle hands cupping her cheeks as a cool wave of something sweeps through her. It is not strong magic, but it banishes the pounding headache that blurs her vision, and Beau opens her eyes to see Yasha’s mismatched eyes staring back at her.

The aasimar woman says nothing, but she remains holding Beau’s face in her hands, their faces only a breath apart.

The door to the room opens, and Molly enters, carrying a basin in both hands, with a few rolls of cloth bandages tucked under his chin as well. “Let’s see the sort of trouble you got yourself into, why don’t we,” he says, setting the basin on the floor by the bed and soaking a cloth in water. “Come on.”

Yasha moves aside, though instead of leaving Beau’s side, she settles on the bed behind her, a strong, solid presence in the corner of Beau’s eye. She touches a gentle hand to the small of Beau’s back, a reassurance that she is there.

With a small nod, Molly sets to work, cleaning out whatever scrapes he can find and assessing bruises. The way he goes about it—quick, but methodical—tells Beau he’s done this before, probably with the carnival. He touches her chin, lifting it to get a look at the split, and makes a quiet clucking noise, as if he can’t believe the amount of trouble she’s managed to get herself into, but he proceeds anyway. As he cleans the scrapes on her knuckles, where her fists hit the sides of the stalls instead of that fucking half-elf, he is careful, holding her hand to see, but not to capture it, making it very clear that Beau can take her hand back if she wants to. There are no scrapes on her torso, only bruises that in the morning will be the same purple as the tiefling’s skin, and so he leaves that alone, only thinking to check her ribs to make sure they are not broken (they aren’t—if they were, she would know).

As he goes about this, he asks no questions. As much of a sly, bullshitting bastard as he can be sometimes, Beau is glad to have him now. If it were Jester who had come after her, Beau knew she would be showered with questions, and the same if it had been Fjord. Caleb was probably the only one who wouldn’t ask her anything, but he has his own baggage—he doesn’t need hers on top of that. She is glad, also, to have Yasha, even though the woman just sits behind her, sometimes rubbing circles in her back with an uncertainty that Beau can understand, and relate to.

Her father did not teach her to make friends. He taught her to make allies and rake up social advantages, and he said friends would only be a disadvantage, if she ever wanted to make something of herself.

“Thank you,” she finally says, her voice quiet, and slightly raspy, even, as she speaks. “I’m sorry…I…”

“Your father’s an asshole,” Molly says, winding a strip of cloth gently around her split knuckles, looking up from his work to make eye contact with Beau. “What you did today, after the job, that was justified.”

“No, not that,” Beau says. She isn’t sorry for entering in a shouting match with her father in front of her friends. “The…The fighting. Sorry you had to see that.”

“Hey.” Molly has stopped wrapping her hand for a moment, and he’s looking her in the eyes. “It’s fine. People need to blow off steam, and if that’s how you do it, I won’t stop you.”

“You did stop me,” she points out, dry humor resurfacing for but a brief moment. “I had that guy on the ropes. I would’ve won.”

“And you did win.” Molly ties off the bandage and moves on to her other hand. “And thank gods you did, because I put a hundred gold on you winning.”

“You bastard.” She goes to swipe at him, to gently cuff his ear, as she might a brother or male friend, and she’s grinning (dear gods, it hurts, and she feels her lip split anew). She settles down easily enough, without Molly having to tell her, though Yasha sets a light hand atop her shoulder, sending a pleasant bolt of electricity down Beau’s spine. “Why didn’t you bet it on the half-elf?”

“The house favorite?” He laughs. “Please. You know me well enough by now to know that I hate to bet on the predictable outcome.”

“So you didn’t expect me to win?”

He laughs again, and so does Yasha. The barbarian’s laughter startles Beau—it’s soft and low, almost like a jovial rumble of thunder—and she isn’t quite sure what to make of it.

“I knew you could win. I just knew everyone else would be betting against you.”

“Gee, thanks,” she mutters, dropping her gaze to her lap. “I’m sorry you guys had to deal with my father.”

Molly shrugs. “Money’s money,” he says, unfazed, as always, it seems. “You could’ve told us, you know, that he was a massive dick.”

“I…I thought he might change, or at least have the common decency not to fucking nitpick.” She scrunches up her nose (another mistake—gods, when will she learn?), and says, in a mocking voice, almost as deep as her own, “Beauregard, I thought you knew better than to associate with such mixed company. Two tielfings and a half-orc, Beauregard, your mother would be appalled. And stand up straight, don’t scowl like that. Do you talk like that to your teachers at the Reserve?”

“He sounded like he had a proper stick up his ass.”

“He does, and always has.” Beau shrugs, and lets out a long sigh. She closes her eye (one is already practically swollen shut, so she doesn’t bother trying to close both) and searches for that inner peace the teachers at the Reserve were always talking about. Giving up, she opens her eyes. “But, money’s money, and we’ve got gold again, I suppose.”

“That we do.” Molly checks her over one last time, muttering something about buying salve for the bruises in the morning, then sets the cloth and other supplies aside. “But, before we do anything with that money, bed is probably the best option.”

“Why? I’ll just feel worse in the morning.”

“Perhaps, but sleep helps most things, Beau,” he says, going over to his pack and unrolling his bedroll. “You might as well stay here. It’s late, and I don’t think Yasha’s going to let you out of her sight, so why don’t you take the bed.”

“I can sleep on the floor.”  
“No. You’re hurt, and you’ll sleep in the bed.”

“I’ll sit with you until you fall asleep,” Yasha offers, and her words bring heat to Beau’s cheeks (or is that blood rushing to the injuries there, she isn’t sure). “Molly…Molly does that for me, when I can’t sleep, and it helps a lot.”

“Oh…okay,” Beau says, cursing herself for loving this woman, though at the same time, she is glad. She wonders if Yasha returns her feelings, or if she is simply being kind. “Okay.”

A small smile unfolds across Yasha’s lips as she helps Beau into bed, tucking the wool blanket around her with surprising tenderness and settling herself next to Beau, on top of the blanket. “You looked good fighting,” she says, the words a whisper in her ear as Beau drifts towards sleep, and towards what she knows will be a very painful morning when she wakes up.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this. 
> 
> This is slightly inspired by the song One More Round by BarlowGirl, if anyone is interested in giving that a listen, it is a song that reminds me very much of Beau. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and please let me know what you think!


End file.
